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76.

Charles Kemble, as Charles, was very fine. He was, to use the words of Goldsmith, as applied to Garrick in another character, "natural, simple and affecting." The simple beauty of his elocution was aided incalculably by the classical elegance of his figure and the perfect grace of all his motions. Gentleman Smith, the original representative, could not have surpassed him. We agree with this notice of Kemble: it was truly the most polished and natural perfomance of the part we ever saw. Mr. Faulkner, as Sir Oliver, equalled Francis in the telling points, and perhaps surpassed him in the more feeling passages which that favorite actor was apt to slight.

Spencer's Sir Benjamin Backbite was clever and well dressed; and Mr. Whiting's Trip was the pink of extravagant valets. Roberts, as Crabtree, gave the dialogue with great point -- it was all good. Mrs. Maywood, as Mrs. Candour, discoursed with fashionable volubility.

On the Kembles' fourth night was played "Venice Preserved" -- Pierre, Mr. Kemble; Jaffier, Mr. Rowbotham; Belvidera, Miss F. Kemble. The Kemble mania rather increasing. Oraloosa drew overflows to the Arch Street nightly, although deemed not so excellent a play as the "Gladiator," but the extraordinary excitement between the two houses seemed only to gather strength from opposition. Forrest was certainly very popular at this time. Well, it was a good thing for the poor actors; they received their salaries.

Saturday, October 20th, Kemble's fifth night, "Much Ado About Nothing" -- Benedict, Mr. Kemble; Beatrice, Miss Kemble. A brief review of the Kembles' acting says: "We were not pleased with Mr. Kemble's Pierre. The bold-faced, valiant, rough soldier of fortune, was not there; and we may well say that 'Passion slept while declamation roared.' But the lady's Belvidera was surpassingly excellent. She displayed her usual rare intellectual qualities in Belvidera's sorrows; it was pathetically picturesque, without those exaggerted outward storms of action, and decidedly sustained with chaste coloring -- the least mawkish and most truly loving and lovable Jaffier's wife we ever saw." Her closing mad scene, where others generally fail, was a wonderful piece of acting, and in her a triumph of the art. Listen to Colly Cibber:

* * * * "The most perfect specimen of the female tragic character to be found in the whole range of the British drama, in my estimation, is Jaffier's wife, the chaste Belvidera, the chef d'oeuvre in the tender Olway. The character is extremely difficult of execution, and is almost hopelessly so to an inexperienced artiste, yet there is a young aspirant to fame, but just escaped from her teens, has essayed it fearlessly." * * * * " ' A frown from a handsome set of features,' Ovid says, 'is more to be feared than a blow from the club of Hercules.' However, I must risk this frown were Miss Fanny Kemble twice as handsome in face and person as she really is. Were the thing possible, I must take leave to tell the lady that in her distress she was too lachrymal -- her sobbing was too loud by half, and too incessant. Her three shrieks on learning of the death of Jaffier were just too many, and out of measure, loud and vehement. I don't believe her aunt, Mrs. Siddons, ever uttered so violent a scream during the forty years she adorned the London stage." He thought Kemble better in Benedick than either james Wallack or Wood.

"In the garden scene, after the discovery of Beatrice's love for him, she was never equaled." It was a fine performance -- super-excellent both in father and daughter.

Miss Kemble exercised great influence on both the audience and the actors. Her quiet mode of expression in the most impassioned parts subdued the explosive sympathies of the audience to the silence of admiration, while she modified the rantiing propensities of the performers to her own soft but energetic tone. Although Bianca becomes a perfect Ate in rage, yet in these fiery outbreaks Miss Kemble begat "a temperance that gave it all smoothness," the delicacy of the female artiste. The trance which she falls into at the departure of Fazio to execution, when the death-bell arouses her to the terrible sense of her condition, her start from her statue-like insensibility, was one of the most thrilling things that I ever witnessed. The shriek, "Not guilty! not guilty!" with the exit, was most appalling to the auditor. The play itself has never been worth its apparent appreciation. Bianca is all in all; the rest is "leather and prunella."

October 22nd, Kemble's sixth night, "The Stranger" -- Stranger, Mr. Kemble; Mrs. Hellar, Miss F. Kemble. The public were now informed that in consequence of the daily increasing demand for seats at the box office, and the limited period of the Kembles' visit, the managers have prevailed upon them to perform every evening during the week, to enable the entire public to behold them.

Wednesday, October 24th, Kemble's eighth night. First night of "The Hunchback" in this theatre. Master Walter, Mr. Maywood; Sir Thomas Clifford, C. Kemble; Modus, Mr. Rowbotham; Fathom, Mr. Roberts; Julia, Miss Fanny Kemble; Helen, Mrs. Rowbotham.

The audiences continued as full and brilliant as ever. Mr. Maywood played Master Walter excellently well, evincing great judgment and originality in its masterly delineation. His peculiar qualities of talent and personal requisites rendered him suitable for this difficut but important feature of the play.

"The Hunchback" was first produced in London, April 5th, 1832, eight or nine weeks before it was produced at the Arch Street Theatre, for Mr. Duffy's benefit, after being offered at Drury Lane and refused -- an act which its management had cause to regret subsequently, as its success at Covent Garden, with Miss F. Kemble's aid, virtually closed their doors. Sheridan Knowles, the author, was the original representative of the male hero of his own creation. It would seem that there was a difficulty in furnishing a Master Walter out of the Covent Garden corps to suitably represent this very original, quaint character. Mr. Macready was then a leading member of it; and his capacity, and we may idiosyncratic mode of acting, would have hit Master Walter's peculiarities to a charm. Of course Macready's position left the election of performing it or rejecting it with himself No doubt but that he read the play previous to its being cast, and declined the part, thinking it, doubtless, secondary to Julia. In this exigency the author thought proper to try the part himself. Whether his mellifluous brogue and rather awkward action, but very natural manner, added strength to the cast, we know not -- it clearly did so as a novelty. We saw him once act Icilius to Cooper's Virginius, and we were satisfied that acting was not his sphere. We trust his pulpit oratory is better. He is decidedly a man of genius, and an ornament to dramatic literature. His themes are ever moral -- his women all that nature intended they should be.

Miss Fanny Kemble's Julia, in "The Hunchback," was a studied and effective performance, and most admirably did she dress it. In the garden scene, her lively, rustic manners, tinged with good breeding, seems just and natural, and thus interesting; but, after her arrival in town, we thought she too soon embodied the ease and graces of a fine lady. A degree of rural simplicity would have been more appropriate. The scene where Julian meets Clifford after his reverse of fortune was indeed the acme of judicious, nay, great acting; its beautiful naturalness drew forth at once the sympathies of the audience. Her delivery of those touching lines, "I call you Clifford, and you call me Madam!" were sweetly and pathetically given, but involved in too long a pause. Again, where she takes the letter from Sir Thomas, and in her abstraction forgets receiving it, but asks for it, she was, in the pauses of her speech, filled up (without being thought impious) with a divinity of expression. Her start when Sir Thomas was too perservering, was full of her sex's dignity. Her elevated emotion when she rebuked Modus for his sneers at Clifford's adversity, was really expressed with peculiar beauty:

"Silence, sir! for shame!"
I tell you, sir, he was the making
Of fifty gentlemen -- each one of whom
Were more than peer for thee! His title, sir,
Lent him no grace," &c. * * * *

All her subsequent scenes with Master Walter were excellent, brilliantly so. After the storm of passion had subsided its first terrific outbursts, she sat seemingly senseless, but pallid, attended by heavy breathings, the swell of emotion endeavoring to escape through her throat. It was "a painful picture to dwell upon." Her exclamation to Master Walter, when she seizes his arm, "Do it!" was a most remarkable and effective point.

Her Julia, as a critic truly said, "was a noble and at the same time a most touching performance -- noble in the sustained energy of its passion, and touching in the pure depths of its pathos."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH

Season of 1832-'3 at the Chestnut Street Theatre -- End of the Kembles' engagement -- Mr Horn and Miss Hughes -- J. W. Wallack -- "The Rent Day" -- Re engagement of the Kembles -- Close of the season.

At the Chestnut Street Theatre, on Monday, October 20th, was the last night but two of the Kembles. The new play of the "Hunchback" was repeated for the third time.

October 30th, Kembles' last night but one -- "Much Ado About Nothing."

November 1st, Mr. Kemble's benefit. "The Inconstant" -- Young Mirabel, Mr. Kemble; Old Mirabel, Mr. Faulkner; Duretete, Mr. Wood; First Bravo, Mr. Walstien; Bizarre, Miss Kemble; Oreana, Mrs. Rowbotham. The Kemble engagement was continued for two nights more. They appeared on Friday, the 2d of November, in "Venice Preserved" -- Jaffier, (first time,) Mr. Kemble; Pierre, Mr. Wood; Belvidera, Miss Kemble.

November 3d, Kembles' last night; by desire, "Romeo and Juliet" -- Mercutio, (first time in America,) C. Kemble; Romeo (for this night only), Mr. Wood; Juliet, Miss Kemble; Nurse, Mrs. Thayer. Thus the Kembles' finished their engagement on Saturday, November 3d, after playing eighteen nights with almost unprecedented success. Mr. C. Kemble's Mercutio